Auditory Downs and Ups

I have had trouble with my ears at least since high school, when I noticed that it was a lot easier to hear what people were saying on the phone if I put the receiver on my left ear. Thinking back, I didn’t really spend much time talking on the phone before that point, so it’s rather unscientific to assume, as I always have, that my right ear somehow "went bad" around that time.

Then and since then, I’ve experienced the joys of tinnitus, which for me manifests as an occasional tone or tones ringing for a while in one or both ears, sometimes loud, sometimes not. Usually I don’t notice the note or chord unless my surroundings are quiet or my inner musician is feeling particularly boisterous. I’ve heard that tinnitus is aggravated by salt, and unintentional experiments with Fritos and over-salted edamame bear this out.

The tinnitus hasn’t been bothering me much lately, but I have been having trouble hearing what people are saying, most noticeably during my recent nasty cold when my ears were quite stuffed up. While seeing Doctor Tracy about that too-long cold I asked about hearing tests, and she referred me to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist). I went to see Doc Rock (Doctor Rockwell) last Wednesday, and he poked around in my ears a bit and administered a hearing test from a little unit on a rolling cart, while sitting beside me. I could hear his foot tapping through the headphones, but that didn’t really affect my ability–or inability–to hear the tones he was playing over the headphones. He told me to say "yes" whenever I heard a tone in either ear, and he presumably entered the data into his little machine. Afterward a little graph printed out, which showed the opposite of what he had expected. He sent me to get a second opinion at a lab nearby, and yesterday I went in to get that test done.

Noise-induced hearing loss, which I’ve assumed I had for years now as a result of years of jazz band and marching band, causes one’s ears to function less efficiently at higher frequencies–2,000 to 8,000 Hz (Hertz, or cycles per second). The result of this during the testing would be that tones in that range would have to be played at louder than 25 dB (decibels) for the subject (me) to hear them ("normal" ears can hear tones at all frequencies between about 250 Hz through 8000 Hz at 25 dB or quieter).

My test results show that in the lower range, about 500 Hz through about 1500 Hz, both of my ears need the notes cranked up to between 30 & 40 dB for me to hear them at all. In other words, my results are the opposite of those of someone with noise-induced hearing loss.

The technical analysis of all this by Anna The Audiologist is that I have "Mild low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss, bilaterally." (Which, I must point out, has a terrible acronym: MLFSHLB? How do you pronounce that? Mulfshulb?)

I find it interesting that my ears tested about the same, since my perception is that my right ear is worse. Perhaps it was, back in high school, and my memory of that causes my brain to still think that words sound clearer on the phone in my left ear, despite that ear having caught up to the other.

Anna The Audiologist said that I may have had this condition since birth or as the result of a virus or something at some point. She also said that there isn’t really anything that can be done about it at this point, other than to get my hearing tested every year and see if it gets worse. I’m going to go back to Doc Rock and see what he says.

But rather than leave this post on such a sour note (cue disgusted groans) I will move on to the Auditory Up: Today Zoey and I went to the Apple Store at U. Village and left with a shiny new 20-gig iPod! The interface with the clicky wheel was unintuitive and awkward at first, but after I figured it out it does seem quite usable and probably as revolutionary as it’s been billed to be.

Instead of reading the directions and charging the thing first, I of course plugged it in to my Mac as soon as I managed to remove all the little clear plastic protective films. Luckily I only have about 3.5 gigs of music on my PowerBook, so the iPod’s half-charged batteries didn’t die while it automatically grabbed all the songs. It’s now plugged into the wall to charge, and I’m listening to the Tomasz Stanko Quartet jam out. The little earbuds are surprisingly responsive throughout the range, even for a mulfshulb like me.

As for Tomasz Stanko, he and Erik Truffaz appeared at our door in CD form courtesy of Luis, Rona’s student’s / Zoey’s babysitter’s Dad. I hadn’t had a chance to listen to either of them until I told iPod to dish me up some Stanko. I’m really enjoying this album, and look forward to checking out Erik Truffaz.

A few weeks ago, Talia, Rona’s student’s / Zoey’s babysitter’s Mom, presented me with two Green Day albums (American Idiot and Dookie) and another by a group called Brother, featuring rock didgeridoo.

After listening to parts of American Idiot and Dookie over the PowerBook’s tinny speakers, I realized that I’ve held an unfair artistic grudge against Green Day for quite some time. I think that at some point listening to 107.7 The End, as I used to do a lot while spending hours commuting throughout Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond, I mixed Green Day up with some other band and/or bands and decided that I didn’t like them. Sorry, Green Day–I don’t know what synapse misfired where, but I’ve realized now that I actually find you both lyrically and musically inspired, and am looking forward to many hours on treadmills and elliptical machines at the gym discovering American Idiot and rediscovering Dookie. As for the rock didgeridoo, what I’ve heard of Brother (the album is called This Way Up) is pretty fun, and I look forward to iPodding that as well.

So, my ears’ functionality may (or may not) be very slowly degrading, but in the meantime I’ve got a terrific new toy and some great tunes to keep them occupied while inspiring me to hit the gym.